


The Mystery of the Missing Gym Sock

by stjarna



Series: Writing Prompts / Drabbles / Requests [15]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, All mistakes are my own, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Tumblr Prompt, Writing Prompt, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 00:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9356285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/pseuds/stjarna
Summary: An anonymous Tumblr user requested Nr. 14 + Fitzsimmonsfrom a list of writing prompts on Tumblr.The task: Incorporate the phrase “Can you stop playing connect the dots with my freckles?” into your fic/drabble.





	

Jemma groans quietly when his alarm wakes her. They had fallen asleep far too late. Easily, contently, in a really quite satisfied manner, but far too late. The beeping continues, and Jemma carefully jabs her elbow into his ribcage. He mumbles an apology and his hand slides off her naked body, leaving her skin slightly cold where it had been resting against her. A moment later the annoying tone stops.

She feels him get out of bed, and hears his tired feet dragging across the floor. Briefly, she opens her eyes and sees his naked bum disappear in the bathroom. The corners of her mouth quirk up involuntarily at the sight. She hears him turn on the water in the shower. She knows he has an early flight back to London. Hers doesn’t leave for L.A. until the late morning.

Jemma closes her tired eyes. She sees him kissing a trail down her stomach, feels his hands exploring her body, smells the sweat clinging to their skin, hears their gentle moans. The memory of last night—and of so many nights before that—makes her stomach twinge in a way only he can make it twinge. Her heart starts racing at the thought. It shouldn’t be this way. It hadn’t been like this. Not always.

* * *

They had met at Cambridge; the two brightest minds on campus; constantly thrown together for projects and collaborations because no one could handle them but each other. They were inseparable. Friends. Best friends.

But after graduation, he began working for Stark Industries in London, while she got a job at the L.A. office.

They stayed in touch. E-mails. Texts. Social media. They saw each other at conferences, and occasionally when Fitz was called to the L.A. office and crashed on her couch.

And that’s when it happened. One night, after a long day of projects and boring meetings, they were sitting in her living room, their stomachs content from the Indian take-out food, their heads light-headed from a few beers, laughing about an age-old story, their heads leaning against each other. And then he looked at her. Or she looked at him. Or their eyes just caught each other. And they kissed. It wasn’t him kissing her or her kissing him. It was a mutual decision. And the kiss led to more kissing and to more and to the inevitable.

The next day, they talked about it. Neither of them dated much. Neither of them easily found people who matched their intellect. It was only natural that it had happened. Biology at its best. They had needs. They knew each other better than anyone else. It was nothing more than two friends helping each other scratch that certain itch. Why not? Spending the night together had saved them the trouble of suffering through boring small talk in the near future trying to hook up with a potential mate just for the sake of achieving sexual satisfaction and feeling like a selfish arse afterwards. They had scratched that itch and it would last them a while.

After that day, whenever they met at business meetings, at conferences, a few times each year, it was as if time hadn’t passed. They reconnected effortlessly, talked, laughed, collaborated, and the sex… well… it just became an added bonus. It worked beautifully. No strings attached. Just friends with benefits.

Until Fitz had called her a week ago, telling her that Stark Industries had offered him a position in L.A. It was a strange feeling. It was the first time Jemma’s stomach did this weird flip, this strange and unfamiliar twinge. She couldn’t decide if it was panic, excitement, or both.

He asked for her advice and for the first time since they had met Jemma wasn’t sure what to say to him. She finally suggested that they should talk at the upcoming conference in New York, face-to-face. It would be easier.

But the truth was, Jemma needed time to think. So she started to think, to analyze. She wrote pro-con lists. And she started to dream, vividly dream, of him in her apartment, making breakfast, of her waking up in his arms, of them strolling down the street hand in hand. Her heart started racing each time she thought about him in L.A.. Permanently? Close to her? _With_ her? She wasn’t sure what to do. No amount of analysis seemed to give her a clear answer. Her heart seemed to be acting recklessly and illogically; her mind was taking her into unchartered territory.

When the conference rolled around, Jemma still managed for the most part to avoid talking about the job offer. Instead, she allowed herself to fall back into their usual routine: catch up, chat, laugh, sex. Fitz didn’t seem to mind.

* * *

Jemma lets out a quiet groan and buries her face into the pillow. She starts doing math in her head to distract herself from her real life problems, and somewhere between 7,547 plus 4,296 and 11,843 squared, she dozes off without wanting to.

She wakes up when something tickles her back. Groggily, she turns her head and sees him sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, slightly leaning over her.

She chuckles when she feels another tickle on her naked skin. “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” she asks, rolling her eyes.

“Just trying to solve the mystery,” he replies, slowly, concentrated on the task at hand.

Jemma lets out a high-pitched screech, when the palm of his hand brushes against the soft skin by her waist, while the pen in his hand tickles her spine. “Can you stop playing connect the dots with my freckles?” she pleads, unable to suppress a laugh. “It tickles! And it’s always a mess to get off. I swear, last time, I had the designs for your newest project on my back for _three_ days,” she adds, turning her head to try and catch a glimpse of what he’s up to this time.

“Ah, yes,” he mumbles. “My apologies for using a waterproof pen that time,” he says without stopping what he’s doing.

“Fitz!” she exclaims, trying to suppress another giggle.

“Almost done,” he says, and leans closer to her face, grinning mischievously. “I _swear_ there’s a code!”

“Eventually that joke is getting old, you know!” she replies, glaring into his eyes.

“I have to disagree!” he says and continues doodling, ignoring her quiet groan.

Finally, Jemma feels a gentle stab of his pen on her back.

“Ta-ta. _Done!_ ” Fitz exclaims triumphantly.

Jemma turns around and sits up, pulling the sheet up to cover her breasts.

She squints her eyes disapprovingly, but—of course—he knows her well enough to know she’s only pretending to be mad. She’s always loved their effortless bickering, their jokes and games. When the smug grin on his face doesn’t disappear, Jemma takes a deep breath and smiles back at him. “When’s your flight again?”

His expression changes, as the grin morphs into a more quiet smile. “Taxi’ll pick me up in fifteen. I have to head downstairs and check out.”

“You’re not gonna have breakfast?” Jemma asks.

“Sleeping an hour longer seemed the better choice,” Fitz replies. “I can grab something at the airport.”

Jemma smiles. “Have a safe trip home.”

“Likewise,” he replies. Something about him looks more serious than she’s used to.

“I’ll be in touch when I’m back in London,” he remarks. “You’ll have to help me figure out the job offer thing.”

“Of course,” she says quietly, as the uneasy twinge returns to her stomach.

“I gotta go,” he says. His hand gently curls around her neck and he softly presses his lips against hers. “Talk to you soon.”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbles and watches him grab his bag and leave.

When the door closes behind him, Jemma’s fingers slowly reach up, gliding over her lips, feeling the memory of his kiss. She closes her eyes and tries to remember. Had he ever done it? Kiss her good-bye? She can’t remember a single instance. It had always been an unspoken agreement that the day after, things would go back to normal, back to business, back to friendship.

She lets herself fall back onto the mattress, sighing deeply. _Stupid stomach flip. Stupid twinge._ She just lies there for a while, staring at the ceiling until her alarm goes off, reminding her that if she wants to take advantage of the free breakfast buffet, she’d better get up and ready.

She heads to the bathroom and turns on the water in the shower, waiting for it to heat up. Her eyes catch a glimpse of the doodled pen marks on her back in the mirror. She scoffs and turns further around to get a better look at whatever ridiculous drawing he had left this time. Then her eyes widen. 

 _I_  
_LOVE  
_ _YOU!_

Her hand instinctively reaches for her chest to see if her heart is still beating. It most certainly is. Hammering against her hand as if it was trying to find a way out.

Was it a joke? What kind of joke? Was he serious? What did it mean? Did it mean anything?

She takes another look into the mirror. Lets her eyes move across the large, black letters: I LOVE YOU.

She clenches her jaw and squints her eyes. She feels anger inside, anger at him for not giving her any more clues.

_Just trying to solve the mystery? I swear there’s a code? Bloody hell, Fitz. It’s not funny. What kind of code is that supposed to be?_

Jemma shakes her head, forcing herself to look away from the mirror. She can’t think about it now. She has to get ready. Pack. Get breakfast. Check-out. Get to the airport.

_Code? It’s not funny!_

She growls quietly before stepping into the hot shower.

* * *

“Checking out,” she mutters absentmindedly to the concierge, handing him her key card. “I’ll need an itemized bill for reimbursement purposes for my company, please.”

“Of course, just a moment, I’ll get it ready for you,” the middle-aged man in a dark-grey suit tells her in the overly friendly manner that Jemma had come to expect whenever she stayed at a conference hotel. The concierge takes her keys and looks up her reservation in the computer to print out the bill.

“Oh, there’s a note here from one of my colleagues,” he remarks, pointing at the screen that’s only partially visible to Jemma. “Looks like there’s a letter waiting for you. I’ll get it together with your bill.”

He leaves his desk and heads to the backroom, returning moments later with the itemized bill and an envelope.

“There you go, Miss Simmons. Anything else I can do for you?”

Slightly confused, Jemma takes the bill and envelope from the concierge. She briefly glances at the letter and her heartbeat quickens when she reads _Jemma Simmons_ in Fitz’s handwriting scribbled across the front.

“Umm,” she stutters somewhat flustered. “Could you call me a taxi to the airport, please?”

“Of course,” the concierge replies enthusiastically. “It generally only takes five to ten minutes for one to get here. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable in our lounge area?” He gestures to a dark leather couch and two armchairs in front of a burning fireplace.

Jemma forces a grateful smile, but her mind is already elsewhere: the letter in her hand. She grabs her carry-on bag and purse and heads for the lounge area. She sits down in one of the armchairs and stares at the envelope in her hands, turning it slowly. A simple white business envelope. Her name on the front. His handwriting.

Was it the key to the code whose traces were still visible underneath her purple blouse?

Her fingers tremble when her mind finally convinces them to open the letter. Nervously, her eyes glance over the neat letters. It was handwritten.

> _Jemma,_
> 
> _I assume by now you’ve read my secret message. I didn’t know how else to tell you. I was too chicken to tell you in person. Too afraid that maybe it’s all just in my head (or heart). So, I came up with this genius… or maybe ridiculously stupid plan. [At the very least you’ll get a handwritten letter out of it. Who doesn’t love a handwritten letter, right?]_
> 
> _I don’t even know when it happened. All I know is that little by little I started to notice that things were changing for me. I noticed that I kept signing up for more and more conferences that really were only marginally interesting for me, because I wanted to spend more time with you. I noticed that my face started to light up the second I saw your name pop up on my phone or in my e-mail inbox. I noticed that it became increasingly more difficult to leave you in the morning and head back to London. _
> 
> _But I shrugged it off. Somehow I shrugged it off. But then Boston happened. I was running late for the airport and I scrambled to pack my bag, and I accidentally grabbed one of your gym socks from the floor and instead of letting you know or tossing it, I put it on my nightstand at home and it’s been sitting there ever since. (No worries, there’s nothing weird going on there, I swear.) And the second day I woke up next to your sweaty, stinky gym sock and it made me smile, I realized that maybe… just maybe I wasn’t acting quite normal anymore, not quite like I was staring at the sock of a friend with benefits. And when Stark offered me a position in L.A., instead of thinking about what this would mean for my career, I thought about what this could mean for us. And I think that’s when I finally admitted it to myself: I’m in love with you._
> 
> _I miss you every day that I don’t talk to you, Jemma. And the thought of living in the same city as you, seeing you every day, waking up next to you. Well, it doesn’t suck._
> 
> _And if you tell me that maybe, just maybe there’s a chance that you’d like to see where life will take us if we stop being friends with benefits and start being friends in a loving committed relationship, then I’ll tell Stark yes in a split-second (if you say no, then I might still say yes to him, but I’ll have to do a lot more thinking)._
> 
> _I’m sorry for doing it this way, Jemma, but, like I said, I’m a wimp._
> 
> _Your coward in love, Fitz_

Jemma lets out a quiet laugh as her eyes finish reading his letter. It’s only then that she notices that his writing has become blurry in front of her; that she’s pressing her lips together to hold her tears in check.

His secret message had been decoded; spelled out in a weird mix of humor and sap that only Fitz could manage.

“Your cab is here, Miss,” the concierge interrupts her thoughts.

“Oh,” she exclaims, surprised, and quickly gathers her things, heading out of the hotel and to the waiting car.

“Airport, correct?” the cab driver inquires.

“Yes. JFK. Terminal 2, please,” Jemma instructs him and buckles up.

Once the car is in motion, she pulls out her phone, glancing at the clock. She quickly sends him a text. 

> _Maybe there is._

If she was lucky, his flight hadn’t boarded yet. And she knew that he always waited until the last minute to switch his phone to flight mode. If she was unlucky, she’d have to wait a good seven hours or so until she’d see what he thought of her reply. Her heart races as she stares at her screen.

When she sees the three little dots, telling her that he’s typing a reply, she can’t help but laugh.

“All good back there?” the cab driver asks.

“Yes, yes, just perfect,” Jemma replies happily, just as Fitz’s reply shows up on her screen. 

> _I can work with maybe._

Quickly, Jemma lets her fingers tap over the keys. 

> _One condition!_

… 

> _What’s that?_

She grins from ear to ear as she types her reply. 

> _Stop playing connect the dots with my freckles!_

… 

> _Counter-offer?_

Jemma wrinkles her forehead. Thinking for a moment before replying.

> _I’m listening._

… 

> _I won’t use a pen._

Jemma chuckles, and sends him a single word back. 

> _Deal!_

… 

> _They’re boarding now :(_

… 

> _Call me when you get home_.

… 

> _Honour bright!_ he replies, but the three little dots tell her that he’s typing more.

…  

> _I swear by_ _your sweaty, stinky gym sock!_

Jemma laughs out loud. 

> _We will get back to the topic of my gym sock another time. Now turn off your phone! <3_

_…_  

> _As you wish, my freckled lady! <3 _

_…_  

> _You know I hate cutesy nicknames, Fitz._

_…_  

> _Sorry. It’s out of my system now. You realize you’re not making this turning my phone off very easy? ;)_

_…_  

> _Sorry. :( But you’re not making it easy to stop replying._

_…_  

> _Sigh. Alright. Gotta go. I’m the last one to board. I’ll call! Thanks for the maybe! <3_

Jemma smiles for a while longer at his final text, before putting her phone away and looking out of the car window. It’ll be a long day before she’ll hear his voice, but it’ll be worth the wait, and at least she had her own day of travel ahead to keep her busy.


End file.
